Mars Rover Opportunity Takes First Drive in Nearly Two Months

The Mars rover Opportunity is currently studying a rock dubbed 'Overgaard' at its Meridiani Planum landing site. On Jan. 19, 2006, the rover drove for the first time since late November 2005.Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell.

After
nearly two months at a standstill, NASA's Mars rover Opportunity has driven its
first tentative meters with a partially stowed robotic arm.

The rover
rolled both backwards and forwards Thursday, repositioning itself at a new
science target and testing its ability to drive with its instrument-laden robotic
arm in an elbow-out position, mission managers said.

"It's good
to be driving again," Jim Erickson, rover
project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told SPACE.com.
"It was sort of a combination between a test drive and going to an interesting
target."

Opportunity
drove toward a rock named "Overgaard," traveling about 7.8 feet (2.4 meters) in
a 'V' shape with its robotic arm's elbow jutting towards the front. The brief
drive marked the rover's first trip since late November 2005, when a broken wire
in one of the shoulder joints for Opportunity's arm prevented the appendage
from deploying.

Rover
handlers have spent that time conducting science observations and determining
the best way to drive Opportunity with its arm only partially stowed. Opportunity
and its robotic twin Spirit are designed to fold their respective robotic arms
under their forward undercarriages for safekeeping during drives.

"So far it
looks fine, but it will be awhile before we're sure about that arm position,"
Erickson said of the elbow-out stance. "We'll be doing further analysis to see
if there are other poses that are better for the arm."

Opportunity
will spend its time studying "Overgaard" along the rim of Erebus Crater for the
next week or so before heading toward a new region of its Meridiani Planum
landing site, mission managers said.

Steve
Squyres, rover science team leader at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York,
said an outcrop dubbed "Olympia" and the more distant Victoria Crater are
future targets for Opportunity's science instruments.

Opportunity
will also hit a mission milestone on Jan. 25 EST, when mission managers will
celebrate the two Earth-year anniversary of the rover's Martian landing.

Meanwhile,
the Spirit rover is continuing its trek toward an interesting patch of Martian
rock that mission scientists have called "Home Plate" after a brief pause to
examine soil churned up by its wheels.

"We went
through this soil and it was just white," Squyres told SPACE.com, adding
that the white-ish material appears to be a high concentration of ferric sulfate
salts. "It was just too tempting to pass up."

Spirit is
currently about 984 feet (300 meters) from "Home Plate", and should reach there
by March 11 at the latest in order to complete its science objectives before
heading off toward McCool Hill in the distance, Erickson said.

Named after
Columbia shuttle pilot William
McCool, McCool Hill is part of the Columbia Hills chain at Spirit's Gusev
Crater landing site named after NASA's seven lost STS-107 astronauts. Spirit
spent more than one year exploring nearby Husband
Hill, with engineers planning to send the rover to the base of McCool by
the onset of Martian winter. The trip will allow Spirit to angle its solar
arrays toward the Sun for optimum power generation.

"Really,
all we need to do is get to get to the beginning of McCool Hill, because we can
climb the hill in that position," Erickson said.